"Some days are longer than others," she said.
Pearl eyed us speculatively, the pillow still in her mouth, and lay down by the fire and put her head on the pillow.
"Do you understand why she prances around with that pillow?" Susan said.
"No."
"Me either."
"Why was today so long?" I said.
Susan sighed and sipped her wine. It must have been a hell of a day, she took in nearly an ounce at one sip.
"One of the things a therapist runs into is the person who thinks now that they understand why they behave as they do, they are cured."
"And you think there may be another step?" I said.
"Changing the behavior would seem appropriate," Susan said.
"Appropriate," I said.
The logs settled a little in the fireplace. The front logs slid back in toward the back ones, making the fire more intense. I built a hell of a fire.
"The ability to understand doesn't automatically confer the ability to change."
"So people have another whole thing to go through," I said.
"Yep."
"And they don't like it."
"Nope," Susan said.
"And today you had several such people."
"Several."
We were quiet. She drank another swallow of wine and put her head against my shoulder.
"Been here long?" she said.
"No," I said. "I just got here. I had a couple beers with Hawk before I came."
"Pearl been fed?"
"Yep. Back yarded and fed."
"And a fire built," Susan said.
"I'd have started supper," I said, "but I didn't know whether you wanted your broccoli raw or simmered in Diet Coke."
"Umm," she said.
"Gee," I said, "Hawk often feels that way too."
We sat and looked into the fire and were quiet together. I liked it. It wasn't an absence of conversation; it was the presence of quiet.
"Saw your ex-husband this morning," I said.
Susan lifted her head from my shoulder and shifted slightly on the couch.
"Don't call him that," she said.
"Okay. I went to see the artist formerly known as Silverman today."
"And you don't have to be a smartass about it either," she said.
I nodded. This thing showed even more signs of not working out well for me.
"Shall I call him Brad?" I said.
"I really would rather not talk about him at all," Susan said.
"Even though you have employed me to save him."
"I didn't employ you," she said. "I asked for a favor."
It was something she did when she was angry, or frightened, which made her angry; she focused vigorously on the wrong part of the question.
"That's right," I said, "you did."
In front of the fire Pearl got up quite suddenly and turned around three times and lay back down, this time with her back to the fire and her feet stretched out toward us. I wasn't aware that Susan had moved, exactly, but she was no longer in contact with me, and her shoulders were angular again.
"Want some more wine?" I said.
"No thank you."
We sat silently again. The silence crackled. It wasn't quiet now; it was anger. I got up and walked to the kitchen and looked out of Susan's window at the darkness.
"Suze," I said, "what the hell is going on?"
"Am I required to tell you everything about everybody I've ever known?"
"I don't recall asking you to do that," I said.
"Well, don't keep bringing up my marriage."
"Suze, for crissake, you came to me."
"I asked for your help, I didn't ask for your approval," she said.
She was a little nuts right now. She hadn't been until a moment ago. And she wouldn't be in a while. But right now there was no point talking.
"Okay," I said. "Here's the deal. I'll help Brad Sterling and I won't tell you about it unless you ask."
"Good."
"And now, I think I'll go home."
"Fine."
Pearl followed me with her eyes as I walked from the kitchen, and her tail wagged slowly, but she didn't lift her head. I reached down and patted her and went to the front door.
"Good night," I said.
"Good night."
I stopped on my way home to pick up some Chinese food and when I got to my place the message light on my machine was flashing. I put the food, still in cartons, in the oven on low and went and played the message.
Susan's voice said, "I'm sorry. Please call me tomorrow."
I poured a little Irish whisky in a glass with a couple of ice cubes. Scotch and beer were recreational, and now and then a martini. Irish whisky was therapeutic. I stood at my front window and drank the whisky. The apartment was very silent. Outside there was a wind, which was unusual-normally the wind died down at night-and it blew a couple of Styrofoam cups around on Marlborough Street. The argument made me feel lousy, but I'd get over it and so would she-the connection between us was too strong to break. What bothered me more was that I couldn't figure out what caused us to argue. Below me, a woman in a long coat was walking a yellow Lab toward Arlington Street. The dog, eager on his leash, had his head down into the wind. But his tail was moving happily and he sniffed at everything. I took a little whisky. In Susan's anger there was something else besides anger. Under the brisk annoyance was a soundless harmonic that I hadn't heard in a long time. She wasn't afraid of much. And when she was afraid it made her furious. The dog paused at Arlington Street and then crossed when the light changed without any sign that I could see from the woman holding the leash. Something about Brad Sterling scared her. It wouldn't be Brad as Brad. The only thing Susan was ever really scared of was herself. It would have to be something that Brad stood for. If it were someone else, I could ask her about it. But it was her. The dog was out of sight now, in the dark of the Public Garden, probably off leash at this time of night, rushing about tracking rats along the edges of the swan boat pond, having a hell of a time. I drank some more whisky. This thing showed every sign of not working out well for me.
chapter five
IF THERE WERE four women suing somebody and one of them was married to Francis Ronan, she figured to be the point person in the deal. So I went to see her first.
Jeanette Ronan lived with her husband in an important, old, vast, gray-shingled house on the outer side of Marblehead Neck, with the Atlantic Ocean washing up over the brassy rock outcroppings at the bottom of their backyard. There was a low fieldstone fence across the front of the property with short fieldstone pillars on each side of the entrance. The property was hilly and scattered with old trees, still unleaved in late winter. The driveway, which curved up to the right and out of sight behind the house, was covered with red stone dust, and there were a lot of flower beds, inert in the loveless March sunlight. I parked at the top of the hill in a big turn-around, beside a red Mercedes sport coupe and a silver Lexus sedan. There was enough room left over to park a couple of tour buses and a caviar truck.
The house had a wide veranda that wrapped around three sides. I walked up the low steps from the driveway and rang. Through the double glass doors I could see a central hallway, with Persian scatter rugs on the polished oak floor, and bright brass fixtures on the walls. Didn't look like faculty housing to me. A woman with a lot of blonde hair and a good tan walked down the hallway and opened the door. She was very nice looking. I handed her my card.
"Mrs. Ronan?"
"Yes, you're Mr. Spenser."
I agreed that I was and we went in.
"My husband is in the conservatory," she said.
I had made the appointment with her, but I didn't comment. We walked the length of the hallway, which gave me a chance to examine her hip movement in case I ever had to follow her covertly. I wondered if that were sexual harassment. Is there sexual harassment if the victim doesn't know it? If a tree falls in the forest… We turned right at the end of the hallway and went into a glass room. The room overlooked the Atlantic, thirty feet below, and the spray from some of the waves breaking on the rocks spattered onto the glass. The effect was pretty good.